In this episode of Everything Should Be Better, Tristin Hopper offers some helpful tips on how to survive a nuclear war. Watch the video above, or read the transcript below.

First, the good news: It’s pretty unlikely you’re going to get caught in a nuclear war.

Now, the even better news: If nuclear war does happen, you don’t necessarily have to die. A lot of people would die, of course: It’s an A-bomb. But there are some easy steps that can feasibly save your life from the most fearsome weapon ever created. Oh, and spoiler alert, the answer isn’t: crawl inside a fridge.

RULE NUMBER ONE: Nuclear bombs aren’t as deadly as you think.

There’s a popular misconception that if nuclear war breaks out, we’re all toast. That atomic war is essentially like the rapture: One minute we’re all alive and then, boom, everybody’s dead.

Well, here’s the centre of Hiroshima after it was struck by an atomic bomb. In this area (first 1,000 metres of the blast radius), the death rate was 93 per cent. That’s pretty bad, but it’s not 100 per cent. This means there were hundreds of people who were only a few blocks away from a nuclear blast who ended up surviving.

They were in basements. They were in thick concrete buildings. One victim, Shigeyoshi Morimoto, survived because he was in a mansion lined with bookshelves that helped absorb the blast.

Here’s what immediately kills you in an atomic bombing: The initial flash from the bomb burns or vaporizes you. Then comes a shockwave that smashes down your house or pulverizes you with debris.

But if you’re far enough away from an atomic blast, neither of those things need to kill you.

This is footage from a 1955 test in Nevada. It shows a concrete house only 1.3 kilometres from the blast site of a 29 kiloton bomb. Despite being only a 15-minute walk from something twice as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, it’s still standing, and any humans sheltering inside could have survived. And here’s a wooden house that was 1.6 km from Ground Zero. It also withstood the blast. In fact, it’s still there to this day.

Here’s a 1957 test where five U.S. Army officers stood directly underneath a two kiloton atomic bomb that was exploded three kilometres up. They were fine, and most lived into their 80s.

Yes, both those tests involved really small nuclear bombs. But we don’t live in the Cold War anymore. The biggest nuclear risk comes from terrorists or rogue states like North Korea, and both of them probably aren’t going to be able to scare up anything too big.

RULE NUMBER TWO: Get inside.

Yeah, yeah, we’re all had a good laugh making fun of the old “duck and cover” routine. Like, the city’s being levelled by atomic war, and I’m going to save myself by hiding under a piece of plywood. Well, yes, actually.

Back to Hiroshima: A lot of people were killed because they didn’t know what was coming. At the time of the explosion, many were outside staring in confusion at the mysterious American plane overhead, unwittingly exposing themselves to the full force of the blast.

The same thing happened 30 years before, during the Halifax Explosion. When the explosion hit, spectators were killed by flying debris, particularly those who had been standing in front of windows. For dozens of people, if they had known to duck and cover they would have walked away.

You essentially want to treat an atomic bomb the same way you would treat a tornado: Get inside the basement and, if there is no basement, head to the furthest point inside a building, away from any doors or windows.

RULE NUMBER THREE: Do not attempt to flee.

Here’s the worst place to be when an atomic bomb goes off: In your car, stuck in gridlock in an exposed highway. Even if you manage to get away from the worst of the shockwave, you and the other drivers will be temporarily blinded by the flash. So you’ll essentially be stuck on a roadway unable to see, and surrounded by other panicked drivers who also can’t see. Great plan.

Still, in the 1950s Canadian cities did plan to evacuate in case of nuclear war. Here, for example, is a 1955 test evacuation of Calgary. But back then, nuclear weapons could only be carried by bombers, and it took a hell of a long time for a bomber to fly over the pole from Russia, giving places like Edmonton as much as three hours to cheese it for the countryside. But if a modern nuclear war breaks out, you probably only have a few minutes before missiles start hitting their targets.

RULE NUMBER FOUR: Avoid the fallout.

So you did it: A freaking nuclear bomb hit your town and you’re still alive. But not so fast: The last step in surviving nuclear war is to avoid the fallout.

An atomic blast sends up a whole whack of particles that then slowly rain down as highly radioactive ash. And fallout can mess you up: It’ll kill you with radiation sickness, or at the very least make you infertile or ensure that you die young of cancer. Fortunately, about 24 hours after the bomb has gone off, the risk from fallout has largely passed. So, in that 24 hours, you’re going to have to continue staying inside, with the same rules as before: As deep inside the building as you can, far away from doors and windows. And, if you happen to get some fallout on you anyway, strip off your clothing and wash as thoroughly as you can.

After that, you’re good to go, Nuclear War Survivor. Now you finally have time to read all your books.

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